Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Hal David Lives On

Hal David was a lyricist extraordinaire. A. Goldstein of the Spectacle mentions a few of his works.

...But he really came into his own in the 1960s with his collaboration with Burt Bacharach.

Bacharach-David were responsible for turning Dionne Warwick into a star. They composed hits such as "Do You Know The Way to San Jose?", "Message to Michael", "Walk on By", and "I Say a Little Prayer".

Consider this list of Bacharach-David compositions which became part of the Great American Songbook:

"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" - B.J. Thomas"This Guy's In Love With You" - Herb Alpert"What The World Needs Now is Love" - Jackie DeShannon"One Less Bell to Answer" - Fifth Dimension"Look of Love" - Dusty Springfield"Only Love Can Break a Heart" - Gene Pitney"What's New Pussycat" - Tom Jones"(They Long to Be) Close to You" - The Carpenters

That's an album unto itself.

It is not unreasonable to propose that Bacharach/David was a landmark in pop song, developing and perfecting a style which succeeded the "Sinatra/Crosby/Martin" style, and far more sophisticated than that of 'rock', using elegant but not-hackneyed harmony. It did, however, have a certain same-ness (as did the work of Mahler, e.g.)